THE STATE OF DENIAL

One sultry afternoon I went to see my doctor in his chamber for some sports related pains and niggles. He prescribed a few medicines. I thought I will buy these medicines from the shop across the clinic before returning home. Accordingly I crossed over to the other side of the street and gave the prescription to the shop boy who was getting the medicines from the shelves. After giving me the packet of medicines he gave me a computerized bill to be paid at the cash counter. An expressionless elderly man seeming like the owner of the shop was sitting behind the counter. As I waited to pay the bill I noticed on top of his counter a bowl brimming with loose change while he was stacking the currency notes in a drawer to his right side. A thought crossed my mind. This was a shop providing medicines. Evidently those who came to his shop were in some kind of discomfort. Somewhat softness of his facial muscles would have done him no harm.   Clearly he was well aware that there was no need of any marketing skills with the positional advantage of his establishment being in the close proximity of a nursing home, a clinic and a few doctors’ chambers in the long stretch of the street. However pushing that thought aside I gave him the bill. I do not remember now how much I was to pay, but I gave him a hundred rupee note. He looked at the amount printed on the bill and asked if I had loose change to settle the full amount consisting of some rupees and some paise. I said I didn’t have the change. He said he didn’t have it either. I was taken aback as the bowl full of loose change was kept there right on top of his counter for anyone to see. I pointed at the bowl to him to say when he had the change, why would he not use some of it to settle my bill? He looked at me sternly and said when I tell you I don’t have change; you have no business looking at that bowl. Needless to say I returned the medicines and came out of the shop feeling shortchanged.

Stanley Cohen is a sociologist who spent many years in Israel before continuing his academic work in Britain. . His book States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering reveals how central denial is in all human life.  He asserts that it is denial that is "normal" and an ability to see the truth and act accordingly is rare, whether in individuals or in governments.' Blocking out, turning a blind eye, shutting off, not wanting to know, wearing blinkers, seeing what we want to see ... these are all expressions of 'denial'.

Do these phenomena have anything in common? When we deny, are we aware of what we are doing or is this an unconscious defence mechanism to protect us from unwelcome truths? Can there be cultures of denial? Is denial always so bad - or do we need positive illusions to retain our sanity?

In Mahabharata, when Drona, his guru and adversary asked Yudhishthira, if Aswatthama was dead, Yudhishthira confirmed it. Drona meant Aswatthama, his son; in fact, it was an elephant named Aswatthama who had been killed by Bhima, to which Yudhishthira indistinctly alluded. Before this episode, Yudhishthira’s chariot had stayed at a height of four fingers’ breadth from the surface of the earth; after he had said that untruth, his chariot touched the earth." a reflection of the stepping down from the moral high he lived in.

In state-craft, denials or lies point out that there is no permanent dharma - one man’s dharma could be another man’s adharma. Or even that one man’s dharma at one point in time could be diametrically opposite to his dharma at another point in time. Such flexibility shows the inclusive nature of men’s character that the Aryan society lived in. Perhaps this is the philosophy that our present day politicians have imbibed and use it unabashedly in its modern version.

I remember listening to a popular Bony-M song called “Sad Movies Always Make Me Cry” in which a girl goes home crying because she saw her boyfriend at a movie with another girl. When her mother asks her what’s wrong, she says “… to keep from telling a lie, I just said, ‘sad movies always make me cry’. It was technically true, but deceitful.

Denial is probably one of the best known defense mechanisms, used often to describe situations in which people seem unable to face reality or admit an obvious truth. Denial is an outright refusal to admit or recognize that something has occurred or is currently occurring. Drug addicts or alcoholics often deny that they have a problem, while victims of traumatic events may deny that the event ever occurred.

“God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another,” ―observed William Shakespeare in Hamlet.

History is replete with examples of people, groups or societies denying history.

In recent times there are endless instances right from Park Street rape being termed as a “sajano ghotona", (fabricated) to denying incidents of violence elsewhere to the extent of branding these merely as optical illusions even when shown in electronic media. While  a 13-year-old girl dies when thrown out after being molested by the staff and some passengers while travelling in a bus in Moga,  a Punjab Minister claims that the victim’s death was 'god’s will'.

We as a Nation have been in a state of denial for years. Democracy has become an unchallengeable fig leaf for our failures. It allows under-performance and ineffective governance and a cover for the criminalization of politics. Several members of parliament and state assemblies have criminal charges pending against them.

 “Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately.” says Machiavelli one of the founders of modern political science.

Thanks to our democratic resilience, they get away with such untruths, half truths and denials and when cornered, TV reporting notwithstanding, accuse media and others that they have been ‘misquoted’!

“It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”  said Sir Noël Coward in his 1945 film Blithe Spirit.

A neighbour came to the gate of Mulla Nasreddin's yard. The Mulla went to meet him outside.

"Would you mind, Mulla," the neighbour asked, "lending me your donkey today? I have some goods to transport to the next town."

The Mulla didn't feel inclined to lend out the animal to that particular man, however. So, not to seem rude, he answered:

"I'm sorry, but I've already lent him to somebody else."

All of a sudden the donkey could be heard braying loudly behind the wall of the yard.

"But Mulla," the neighbour exclaimed. "I can hear it behind that wall!"

"Whom do you believe," the Mulla replied indignantly, "the donkey or your Mulla?”